Politics of violence

It was indeed quite a sight to watch Navin Pathnaik, the Orissa Chief Minister, grilled mercilessly by Karan Thapar on CNN-IBN in the Devil’s Advocate programme. Only Thapar can do what he is best at: ask straight forward, relevant and challenging questions, without mincing words. Earlier, several leaders, including L. K. Adwani and Ram Jethmalani have walked out of Karan’s programmes, finding him impossible. Fortunately, Pathnaik withstood the ‘onslaught’, even as he fretted, frowned and almost sweated it out in the confines of the air-conditioned studio.
What one has to admire is Pathnaik’s resolve and consistency throughout the interview, denying allegations that not even the minimum was done to protect Christians when they were attacked in Orissa. He went on to say that everything possible was done to stop violence. However, one cannot still understand why Christians are living in such fear in Kandhamal and neighbouringdistricts. One even fails to reason why the government is shying away from acting tough on those who are out to destroy Christians in Orissa, even after such international pressures. There have been reports of hundreds being converted (not re-converted, for they were not Hindus but tribals before accepting Christianity) to Hinduism by force. And if conversion by force is a crime, why not punish these self-styled protectors of Hinduism? Why this double deal?
The answer lies not so much in the communal as the political angle of the development. Parties have realised that one of the best way to come to power and stay there is to polarise people on communal lines, kill some if you must and sow the seeds of hatred among the dominant class. Modi did it to near perfection in Gujarat . He is the model for most political parties, even as some of them do not wish to accept it openly. Raj Thakre is doing that in Mumbai. Unfortunately, the Congress and several other so called secular parites have their own agenda and hence are ambivalent as far as taking a clear stand on Hindutva politics is concerned.
We pride in calling ourselves the largest democracy. But I think we need to ask ourselves whether this democracy on which we have placed our trust is able to give all citizens security guaranteed by the Constitution. Why should some live in eternal fear while others roam about fearless terrorising and killing people? Why is that political parties, including the ‘secular’ ones, care little about people, especially the poor, when they call themselves public servants? The answer is very simple: altruism may be a pan-Indian virtue, propagated in our religious heritage; but that is not a virtue to be imitated as regards modern politics is concerned. Most of today’s political parties, including the Left, have compromised heavily on ideologies and are busy strengthening their base at any cost. While the Congress tries its traditional means of wooing subalterns and minorities, the BJP is anti-intellectual and playing, as usual, its Hindutva card. The Left are Marxists on paper. But their recent adventures in Singur and Nadigram only prove the fact that they are out to convert Marxism into neo Capitalism. Meantime, Media are content to maintain the status quo instead of critically evaluating such developments.

A Wednesday - the arrival of the common man

Is anybody taking the common man seriously? R. K. Laxman’s common man in Times of India is merely a mute spectator to everything that happens around him. Perhaps he is wise as he knows that talking may not help much in easing uneasy situations.
But the common man in the film A Wednesday is not dumb. In fact, throughout the film he talks the most, and rightly so; because his only desire is that he be taken seriously. For long he has been kicked around like a soda can on the streets. No more! Now he has risen, with vengeance. So what if his means are unethical and too technical? His ultimate aim is quite clear, at least to him. And for that he is ready to take a risk. His worth is acknowledged at the end by the web hacker who accepts that this common man is ‘the best’.
A Wednesday raises many questions. Does not the common man have any other means to make his presence felt than hold the entire city to ransom? Does he require ‘blackmailing’ as his weapon to announce his arrival? Does he think he can thus clean up the mess around him? When Inspector Rathod tells him on his face that he is a coward, afraid to come in the open and fight, the common man has no issues. He quite plainly accepts that he is afraid. But more afraid is he to go to market, catch a suburban train; for he thinks he is not safe anymore. He does not know when the next bomb will go off. He is made to be resilient, not by choice but by force.
Is the common man taken seriously, at least in the film? For a while, yes. There is no other choice. One cannot take risk with situations where lives of thousands of people are involved. So he is taken seriously, not as a common man, but as a supposed terrorist. But whether he succeeds in representing all common people is a further intriguing question.
A Wednesday indeed is a good film with a simple but effective plot. Neeraj Pandey has done a commendable job; so have the actors, especially Naseeruddin Shah as the common man and Anupam Kher as the Inspector. The main plus point of the film is that it makes the audience think. The hapless common man among the audience who has witnessed the mindless terror attacks in the bylanes and subways will surely identify himself with the common man in the film. It will further give him a cathartic effect. For a while, the common man in the audience might as well think that the path chosen by the common man in the film to tackle terrorism could as well work, what with technology coming handy. But whether technology can be a solution for all evil in the world and whether an ordinary common man has the access to such sophisticated, almost out-of-reach, technology is even more difficult question.
One thing, though, is certain. The film makes a bold statement from the perspective of simple ordinary people – do not take us for a ride; take us seriously. Give us a sense of security which is what we are asking for, not your empty promises.

Media becoming communal?

“Journalists say a thing that they know isn't true, in the hope that if they keep on saying it long enough it will be true.” - Arnold Bennett

People being divided on communal lines, though unfortunate, is nevertheless acceptable. Political parties sadistically trying to get political mileage out of communal politics, though difficult to accept, is still understandable; for, at the end of the day a politician will only look for his survival in the political fray.
But how can we understand journalists and media professional openly declaring their communal ‘credentials’? This is exactly what has been happening in Mangalore in the last few weeks. Very many reporters were indirectly, if not directly, involved in some sort of communal tension. There were also reports of reporters actually abetting communal violence. However, greater violence was done through their reportage. At least a few of them had the audacity to put the entire blame on the Church. They were resistant to at least accept that violence on minorities, on whichever pretext, was not acceptable in a democracy.
Why is such a development taking place among media professional? Do these journalists also experience some sort of insecurity that they need to align to some political party or communal organisation? Or do they slavishly accept the order of their superiors? It could be both. But the question is how can we call all that journalism? Reporters are supposed to be objective, at least when it comes to reporting sensitive issues. They are not to show any leaning to any political party. All that is good wisdom; but in reality, there is nothing called objectivity in journalism anymore. If one has to be objective one has to give up all adjectives. If a reporter calls a murder ‘brutal’ he is already giving his opinion. Or if a reporter terms Bishop Moras’s interaction with the CM as ‘lambasting’, we cannot call it objective, as Bishop may not have lambasted the CM. He may have just voiced his concern, of course, with a little impatience and anger.
So objectivity is relative. Nevertheless, objectivity should necessary be the ultimate goal of a journalist and he/she should strive to be objective at every beat.
What we have seen in the reportage of Karnataka violence is a subjective approach by many reporters, increasingly adding subtle comments to their reports. There was this lady of a news channel. After covering the Mangalore incident on one of those days, she added an unsolicited comment, ‘Unless there is serious rethinking on conversion, such incidents can only repeat,’ (or to that effect). First of all, has she to add her ‘wise’ comments in a report that is so sensitive? Secondly, who has given her the authority to evaluate constitutional rights? Thirdly, has someone told her that such violence will continue? Or is she just making an assumption? Is she aware that a communal force viewing her ‘report’ could get carried away? This was not only poor reporting; it was irresponsible and disgusting, to say the least.
Swapandas Gupta of the Times of India has a strong BJP allegiance, which everybody knows. But at least as a journalist he has the moral obligation to commit himself first to good journalism. However, he had no qualms in wholeheartedly endorsing Modi, even when the whole nation knows that it was because of him that three thousand Muslims were lynched in Gujarat. Journalism is just getting murkier.
Channels and newspapers were full of such stuff, though they did give a wide coverage to communal turmoil in the country. It is not news today to know that communal elements are increasingly spreading their tentacles within the newsroom. This development is mainly due to the fact that people from lower strata of society and the minority communities are either not getting into journalism or they are not given freedom to do objective reporting. We do require many more journalists from these communities in today’s media. One cannot expect a dominant class to be objective, especially when it comes to issues of dalits and minorities. We need more dalits and those from minority communities to do that.